IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v158y2014i3p483-497.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Picking a loser? A social choice perspective on the Danish government formation of 1975

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard

Abstract

All democratic systems are theoretically open to so-called election inversions, i.e., instances wherein a majority of the decision makers prefer one alternative but where the actual outcome is another. The paper examines the complex 1975 Danish government formation process, which involved five rounds of negotiations and at least five competing alternatives. We demonstrate that in terms of party preferences the final outcome was not the Condorcet winner but rather one that could have been beaten by at least three other government alternatives in head-to-head comparisons. The Danish procedural system of “negative” parliamentarism combined with simple plurality rule to produce the electoral inversion. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, 2014. "Picking a loser? A social choice perspective on the Danish government formation of 1975," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 483-497, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:158:y:2014:i:3:p:483-497
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-013-0120-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-013-0120-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-013-0120-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter & Klemmensen, Robert & Pedersen, Mogens N., 2008. "Højre, venstre eller midte? Et empirisk perspektiv på partirummet i dansk politik [Right, left or centre? An empirical perspective on the party space of Danish politics]," MPRA Paper 68812, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter, 2001. "An Empirical Example of the Condorcet Paradox of Voting in a Large Electorate," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 107(1-2), pages 135-145, April.
    3. Ostrom, Elinor, 2009. "An Agenda for the Study of Institutions," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 6, pages 89-110, December.
    4. -, 1986. "Agenda = Agenda," Series Históricas 8749, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    5. Stephen Wright & William Riker, 1989. "Plurality and runoff systems and numbers of candidates," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 155-175, February.
    6. Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter, 2011. "Election inversions, coalitions and proportional representation: Examples from Danish elections," MPRA Paper 35302, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ayranci, Evren, 2010. "Family involvement in and institutionalization of family businesses: A research," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center (PRADEC), vol. 3(3), pages 1-22, October.
    2. Raitio, Kaisa, 2013. "Discursive institutionalist approach to conflict management analysis — The case of old-growth forest conflicts on state-owned land in Finland," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 97-103.
    3. David P Carter & Christopher M Weible & Saba N Siddiki & Xavier Basurto, 2016. "Integrating core concepts from the institutional analysis and development framework for the systematic analysis of policy designs: An illustration from the US National Organic Program regulation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 28(1), pages 159-185, January.
    4. Buitrago R., Ricardo E. & Barbosa Camargo, María Inés, 2021. "Institutions, institutional quality, and international competitiveness: Review and examination of future research directions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 423-435.
    5. Blind, Georg, 2015. "Behavioural rules: Veblen, Nelson-Winter, Oström and beyond," MPRA Paper 66866, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Fritz W. Scharpf, 1991. "Games Real Actors Could Play: The Challenge of Complexity," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 3(3), pages 277-304, July.
    7. Paul, Bénédique & Garrabé, Michel, 2011. "Le capital institutionnel dans l'analyse du développement : Prolongement théorique et premier test empirique [Institutional Capital in Economic Development Analysis: Theoretical Continuation and Fi," MPRA Paper 39016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Christopher Weible & David Carter, 2015. "The composition of policy change: comparing Colorado’s 1977 and 2006 smoking bans," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 48(2), pages 207-231, June.
    9. Hotte, Ngaio & Kozak, Robert & Wyatt, Stephen, 2019. "How institutions shape trust during collective action: A case study of forest governance on Haida Gwaii," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-1.
    10. Hugo Marcelo Zunino, 2006. "Power Relations in Urban Decision-making: Neo-liberalism, 'Techno-politicians' and Authoritarian Redevelopment in Santiago, Chile," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(10), pages 1825-1846, September.
    11. Lee-Peuker, Mi-Yong & Klauer, Bernd, 2010. "Bringing about institutional change in public brownfield management: The case of Saxony-Anhalt (Germany)," UFZ Discussion Papers 5/2010, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    12. Benedict S. Jimenez, 2017. "Institutional Constraints, Rule-Following, and Circumvention: Tax and Expenditure Limits and the Choice of Fiscal Tools During a Budget Crisis," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 5-34, June.
    13. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, 2014. "Empirical social choice: an introduction," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 297-310, March.
    14. Lam, Wai Fung, 2001. "Coping with Change: A Study of Local Irrigation Institutions in Taiwan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(9), pages 1569-1592, September.
    15. Baxter Jamie, 2019. "Leadership, Law and Development," The Law and Development Review, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 119-158, January.
    16. Justesen, Mogens K. & Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter, 2007. "The constitution of economic growth: Testing the prosperity effects of a Madisonian model on a panel of countries 1980‐2000," MPRA Paper 36063, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. William Mitchell, 1988. "Virginia, Rochester, and Bloomington: Twenty-five years of public choice and political science," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 101-119, February.
    18. Paul Lewis, 2021. "Entrepreneurship, novel combinations, capital regrouping, and the structure-agency relationship: an introduction to the special issue on innovation and Austrian economics," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 1-12, March.
    19. Scott Moore & Joshua Fisher, 2012. "Challenges and Opportunities in GRACE-Based Groundwater Storage Assessment and Management: An Example from Yemen," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(6), pages 1425-1453, April.
    20. Teodora Diana IACOB, 2017. "Evaluation of Cohesion Policy in Romania: new perspectives," CES Working Papers, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 9(3), pages 423-443, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social choice; Voting paradoxes; Election inversions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:158:y:2014:i:3:p:483-497. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.